Letter by James Hamilton on death of McCheyne

James Hamilton wrote a letter to McCheyne’s father which is recorded in Smellie’s life of McCheyne. In it, he said this about McCheyne:

‘This is the most solemn event which has happened since I became a minister. It has made the last two days days of darkness and gloominess. For besides your loss and his people’s, and the loss to us who loved him as a brother, it is a heavy stroke to the Church and land. The removal of so bright a light at such a time, is a righteous but terrible judgment. I do not wish to lose the personal in the public warning; for I feel that I greatly needed it. Indolence and levity and unfaithfulness are sins that beset me; and his living presence was a rebuke to all these, for I never knew one so instant in season and out of season, so impressed with the invisible realities, and so faithful in reproving sin and witnessing for Christ. His feeble frame made his labours the more wonderful, and his sensitive spirit made fidelity more difficult to him than it would have been to a mind less tender.

‘Love to Christ was the great secret of all his devotion and consistency; and, since the days of Samuel Rutherfurd, I question if the Church of Scotland has contained a more seraphic mind, one that was in such a constant flame of love and adoration toward Him that liveth and was dead. His continual communion with God gave wonderful sacredness to his character; and, during the week that he spent with us last November, it seemed as if there were a sanctity diffused through our dwelling. That visit was useful to many; and his Sabbath evening sermon on “Following the Lord fully” made a deep impression then, which the tidings of last Monday have revived in new solemnity. We feel now what a kind Providence it was, which led us to ask that visit and induced him to comply….

‘Since Monday morning, he has been the one thought present to my mind; and, now that I am writing to you, I find a mournful pleasure in recalling those solemn days in St. Peter’s, and those hallowed evenings in his own house, which can never return; as I trust the beauties of holiness which I then saw in him may be profitable lessons and motives all my life henceforward. I doubt not, my dear Sir, that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, will sanctify to you and yours this heavy trial. Seldom has a weeping family so many prayers offered in their behalf. May you yet, in the immeasurably larger supply of His presence, find it expedient for you that the desire of your eyes has gone away. My tongue is not learned like his, else I would try to speak a word in season in this hour of sorrow. But you have no need of earthly comfort. Our own night cometh, and then the morning cometh, and, when He Himself is come, sorrow shall flee away. Since the days of Samuel Rutherfurd the Church of Scotland has not contained a more seraphic mind—that is the right estimate and the fitting word.’